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A brilliant book by Nobel Prize winner Eric R. Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art.

At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today.

The Vienna School of Medicine led the way with its realization that truth lies hidden beneath the surface. That principle infused Viennese culture and strongly influenced the other pioneers of Vienna 1900. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive and erotic desires are repressed and disguised in symbols, dreams, and behavior. Arthur Schnitzler revealed women’s unconscious sexuality in his novels through his innovative use of the interior monologue. Gustav Klimt, Oscar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele created startlingly evocative and honest portraits that expressed unconscious lust, desire, anxiety, and the fear of death.

Kandel tells the story of how these pioneers—Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele—inspired by the Vienna School of Medicine, in turn influenced the founders of the Vienna School of Art History to ask pivotal questions such as What does the viewer bring to a work of art? How does the beholder respond to it? These questions prompted new and ongoing discoveries in psychology and brain biology, leading to revelations about how we see and perceive, how we think and feel, and how we respond to and create works of art. Kandel, one of the leading scientific thinkers of our time, places these five innovators in the context of today’s cutting-edge science and gives us a new understanding of the modernist art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele, as well as the school of thought of Freud and Schnitzler. Reinvigorating the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna 1900, The Age of Insight is a wonderfully written, superbly researched, and beautifully illustrated book that also provides a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities. It is an extraordinary book from an international leader in neuroscience and intellectual history.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance praise for The Age of Insight

“Eric Kandel has succeeded in a brilliant synthesis that would have delighted and fascinated Freud: Using Viennese culture of the twentieth century as a lens, he examines the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, and art. The Age of Insight is a tour-de-force that sets the stage for a twenty-first-century understanding of the human mind in all its richness and diversity.”—Oliver Sacks, author of The Mind’s Eye and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

“In a polymathic performance, a Nobel laureate weaves together the theories and practices of neuroscience, art and psychology to show how our creative brains perceive and engage art—and are consequently moved by it. . . . A transformative work that joins the hands of Art and Science and makes them acknowledge their close kinship.”—Kirkus Reviews (STARRED)

“A fascinating synthesis of art, history, and science that is also accessible to the general reader. A distinctive and important title that is also a pleasure to read”—Library Journal (STARRED)

“Engrossing … Nobel-winning neuroscientist Kandel excavates the hidden workings of the creative mind. Kandel writes perceptively about a range of topics, from art history—the book’s color reproductions alone make it a great browse—to dyslexia. … Kandel captures the reader’s imagination with intriguing historical syntheses and fascinating scientific insights into how we see—and feel—the world.”—Publisher’s Weekly

“A fascinating meditation on the interplay among art, psychology and brain science. The author, who fled Vienna as a child, has remained captivated by Austrian artists Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele, each of whom was profoundly influenced by Sigmund Freud and by the emerging scientific approach to medicine in their day … [calls] for a new, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mind, one that combines the humanities with the natural and social sciences.”—Scientific American

“Eric Kandel’s book is a stunning achievement, remarkable for its scientific, artistic, and historical insights. No one else could have written this book—all its readers will be amply rewarded.”—Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

“Eric Kandel’s training as a psychiatrist and his vast knowledge of how the brain works enrich this thoroughly original exploration of the relationship between the birth of psychoanalysis, Austrian Expressionism, and Modernism in Vienna.”—Margaret Livingstone, Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

“This is the book that Charles Darwin would have produced, had he chosen to write about art and aesthetics. Kandel, one of the great pioneers of modern neuroscience, has effectively bridged the ‘two cultures’—science and humanities. This is a task that many philosophers, especially those called ‘new mysterians,’ had considered impossible.”—V. S. Ramachandran, author of The Tell-Tale Brain

“Eric Kandel has created a masterpiece, synthesizing brain, mind, and art like no one has before.”—Joseph LeDoux, NYU, author of The Emotional Brain and Synaptic Self

“[This book] offers not only a stunning organic (in every sense of the word) view of fin de siecle culture but also opens new vistas in bioesthetics. It explores the often shocking neurology of the beautiful. And it shows how artist and scientist interlace in the common quest to discover the innards of reality. ‘I don’t render the visible,’ said Paul Klee, ‘I make visible.’ He echoed Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Euclid alone looked on beauty bare.’ Eric Kandel is of that company.”—Frederic Morton

“Nobel laureate Eric Kandel’s path-setting exploration of the connections between neuroscience and the painters Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka establishes a new frontier in the study of this all-important historical period. The shift toward a biological conception of self, which began in Vienna over a hundred years ago, has since decisively shaped our understanding of human nature.”—Jane Kallir, director, Galerie St. Etienne

“With infectuous enthusiasm and limitless reverence for his multiple subjects, Kandel deftly steers the reader through a vast and inviting territory of science, the creative process, the mind, emotion, eroticism, empathy, feminism, and the unconscious. Years in the making, this highly readable book presents a magisterial study of brain, mind, and art.”—Alessandra Comini, University Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita, Southern Methodist University

About the Author

Eric R. Kandel is University Professor and Kavli Professor at Columbia University and a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Kandel is founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on memory storage in the brain. He is the author of In Search of Memory, a memoir that won a Los Angeles Times Book Award, and co-author of Principles of Neural Science, the standard textbook in the field. He was born in Vienna and lives in New York with his wife, Denise.

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First, I must state my long abiding interest in psychology, fine art and more recently, neuroscience. I have also read Kandel's 'In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind' which is more technical. But this beautifully bound and lavishly illustrated hardback, with colour reproductions of art works is such a joy to read. It is not too technical and the biological explanations should be easily understood. Kandel uses changes in knowledge of visual perception exemplified in Art to explain the workings of the brain and the different types of cortical processes used to make meaning from input from the senses. He compares the work of Freud and other Viennese scientists of the period and how their work has laid foundations for some of the recent advances in neuroscience and man's improved understanding of himself. The book itself is a work of art and I cannot recommend it too highly.

In this richLY rewarding book, Nobel laureate Eric Kandel (2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) attempts to draw together two widely disparate disciplines, the visual arts and brain science. That he succeeds as well as he does is a tribute to the wide reading he has done -in neuroscience, of course, but also psychology and physiology, philosophy, history and philosophy of art (he doesn't do badly in history either)--and his openness to new ideas.

Using the art world and science world of turn of the century Vienna, and focusing on the three extraordinary artists who among them forged Austrian Expressionism -Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), and Egon Schiele (1890-1918) - asks three questions:

*Does art have universal functions and features?*If so, how are they arrived at and perceived?*Are our responses to art always personal or are there general biological mechanisms within us that condition them?

Kokoschka called himself a "psychological tin can opener." He wanted to paint his subjects' inner reality. Just as Viennese writer Alfred Schnitzler invented the interior monologue, "stream of consciousness," to gain access to the inner thoughts and mood swings of his characters, so Kokoschka and Schiele especially, devised new artistic techniques to look behind the mask of a person's public persona. While they add little new to our understanding of their works, Kandel's comments on why they worked are sensible and, more important yet, given the eventual aim of the book (the book's arc) they provide a bridge to the later discussion of how in fact the brain processes visual information and, briefly, a discussion of "the brain as a creativity machine."

The discussion that follows occupies almost two-thirds of the book. After a relatively short (40 pp) discussion of the cognitive psychology of perception, it concentrates on how the brain receives, stores and organizes information, and the implications of this for the visual arts. Parts of what follows is heavy going but plodding through it familiarizes the reader for some very interesting comments.

I don't intend to summarize them, but I will give one example. Discussing the dominant role of line in art, Kandel observes:

"Artists have always realized that objects are defined by their shapes, which in turn derive from their edges. [But] In the actual world, there is no such thing as an outline: objects end and backgrounds begin without any clear line distinguishing the boundaries. Yet the viewer has no difficulty in perceiving a line drawing as representing a hand, a person, or a house. The fact that this sort of shorthand works so effortlessly tells us a lot about how our visual processing system works. ... [O]ur brain cells are excellent ... at reading lines and contours as edges. ... Each moment that our eyes are open, orientation cells in the primary visual cortex are constructing the elements of line drawings in the scene before us."

A book that ranges this widely forces the writer to move outside his or her chosen field of expertise quite regularly. There are risks in doing it but the payoff can be considerable. Kandel has done so boldly without distorting or moving beyond what current evidence has shown. He notes the achievements and observations of others, making it easy to trace where his own ideas and speculations come from. He notes what is speculation and what firm evidence. And he writes lucidly and, occasionally, very well.

Another thing I like about the book is the care that has been expended in producing it. Random House deserves applause for its support of the project, which cannot have been cheap. There are numerous color illustrations, works of art and diagrams of the brain, and black and white photographs and schematic drawings of the nervous system, etc. The cover incorporates Klimt's first portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907), one of his most seductive and lushly painted works, and the end papers reproduce a detail, rich in gold, from the dame work. A lovely touch: when Kandel discuses what makes a face attractive, he illustrates it with a photograph of his wife taken when she was much younger.

[This is the second book I have purchased and read this year on or about science where the presentation enhances the text. The other was George Dyson's magnificent history of the digital revolution, Turing's Castle (Pantheon, 2012).]

Author has masterful knowledge of neurology, and deep insight into Freud and Klimt, but I felt that the master plan of the book never quite came together. I don't think neuro-psychology is ready to explain the visual arts in any depty.

I came to this book by way of an interest in philosophy -- and was fascinated by the range of ideas that it introduced. If forced to describe it in a minimum number of words, I'd say that it's an introduction to neuro-aesthetics -- but doesn't really do it justice. It's also about how the mind works in general, and a little about history, and a little about art -- with some exploration of the boundaries between all of these things.

I read this book on loan from a friend, and decided I needed to own my own copy. If "neuro-aesthetics" sounds interesting to you, I suspect you'll want to own your own copy too :-)

This is perhaps the best, most satisfying book i have ever read. Primarily because it brought together the modern scientific and psychological thinking with modern painting and art. I never knew of that connection. It appears that the connection was made in private homes in Vienna near the turn of the last century, when scientists, physicians and artists who were most prominent during those years and at that place liked to get together, informally and talk about what interested them most. Science was beginning to rapidly change the way we thought of the real world and artists apparently like that thought. So, they began to change the way they painted, trying ever and ever to indicate the way humans act and think. This book has such delightful pictures of those artists. In addition, Kandel described our current views of how the brain works, or at least how they thought it worked yesterday. All of this led to my wonder at this book. Beautiful!

"The Age of Insight" gave me enormous insight into Vienna before World War I, the wonderful confluence of artists, psychologists, scientists, writers, and musicians who knew and influenced one another. I especially enjoyed his in-depth studies of Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka. The parts of the book where he analyzed the neurology of seeing were tough going, and I admit to skimming parts of those chapters. Overall, this was a spectacular book, which enriched my understanding of the golden age of Viennese Modernism. The illustrations are extensive and very helpful.

I couldn't resist the parody on the Wide World of Sports series from years back. I cannot really say where Dr. Kandel's wide-spanning mind might not seek to go. He starts with art, moves through history, psychology, neuroanatomy and towards neurologic pathology. Much is divertingly discussed in a manner that seems lucid, at least to my trained mind. I would hope that it would function as a clear introduction to those with less first-hand knowledge of the latter fields.The book is an adventure in inductive logic and the synthesis of multiple fields of action. It is a good read